Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / May 9, 1965, edition 1 / Page 4
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Page 4 THE DAILY TAR HEEL Sunday, May 9, 1965 Let's Be Honest Oppressive Fish Sticks Students For Teachers admirable intentions, but questionable forethought. It began when a few over the English department's failure to rehire Dr. William Goodykoontz, ostensibly on the grounds that he has not published any as a lecturer here. A ready-made "cause" of a few students who are willing to go to work when they see a situation which they think deserves cor rection. They began organizing, was impressive. But they honest with their new followers because they have grossly simplified the whole problem, whether they meant to or not. - ; ; The first question which comes to the mind of anvone who has even the slightest knowledge. of Uni- ; versity policies is, "What ." a. . i l - ' o i rm reiauiine uiis man; mere 1 publishing professors in lieve for a minute that an what the department head t Students for Teachers know Goodykoontz well, and II J 'A At A 9 J uicv dumii uicii ne uas uune vide grounds for the action, were not involved. But let's assume for a sausuea uiai iaiiure to puDiisn is me only lactor in li f! 3 II A. f A volved. The University is icimc luui. lo&c ii, ui iiui, puuuMi ur pexisii nas lis merits, and the Students for Teachers are ignoring them. As in any other part of world sets up its own standards criteria which are mure or less aroiwary, as, - Students say, "But the man er or not he is a good teacher." Unfortunately, every one of them has his own definition of a "good teach er." Some of his students uuicia udinu 111111. x xit; A 1 a rrrt- a more suDstantiai and less ment. Publishing is the measuring stick. It provides a tangible means of testing Students argue that professors are forced to spend time on research work and shortchange; them in the classroom. Since when do students want to be spoon-fed and coddled? Don't they realize that the re- searcning vana, tnereiore, . . a . M W m ter informed and can do new and useful information teacher" who has been lecturing from the same notes for 30 years? The students are, in fact, being short changed by the non-researching teacher. Most stu dents say they consider "good teachers" to be those -. who inspire them cause - selves. It is absolutely contradictory to say research and publication hinder a teacher in providing such a ' lift O rf"fcW . rV tIVklt AHA U AMI A J ' I' " m . ume to maKe convenient nttie information sheets and siuuy guiaes ior mem, out are tnese necessary to achieve ,the ultimate goals of education? i uy an means, let tne stuaents tor Teachers investi gate the situation. They will .find Kenan professors who nave never puDusnea any more , man AxOOuy--Trnrmtr. Thiv will Trie- Ym-rA' TTccjf1 -r tiru xTttMA ct-v- ampies to support their cause. . ? . -Quite likely they will find that publish or perish simpiy aoes 1101 exist :av mis umyersiry, - ana wiu t probably iiever exist; They aisvery however . tnat-puDiismng professors why not reward them? Burthelstudents will also find iiiaiiy men wnq ran niy ;m teacher" category get significant promotions just as frequently as the publishers; If they; do not admit this, they are not being honest with themselves or anyone "else.'.;-: . " ' ' . . :V T.'-y . ' . l . V'. , -Honesty is the important . University should be honest tall " VtlTV Avnfliln nL.. """-vauvMjr -vi-ixij tuiiixatt -nas not oeen re- uncu xuu wr riiiiiK si i inPTirc cheated by an 7 emphasis' oh , uenig so seii-centerea. .Let's Second CbwPosta Paid is an organization with students became concerned work during his two years was dropped into the laps and the popular response haven't been completely . ' is the real reason for not . - . a i- ' are simpiy ioo many non- high positions here to be English lecturer would not claims. The organizers of . " . 1 ' 1 uungs wmui xiiigiii pru- even if non - publishing minute that .everyone is 1 A w m m m still within its rights not to . our society, the academic. mueeu, most criteria are. must be judged by wheth sing praises to Goodykoontz jiuversiiy lisen must nave . . - J variable standard of judg value judgments of ability. puDiismng) teacher is bet m mm mm 1 - a better job of providing than the popular "good them to think, for them- A M M V a. J3 . . mm - . . A. . m m, 1 tind promotions ; come eas- - me non-puDnsmng rgooa issue here. We think the with Goodykoontz and ; A- ' -m.-m - . ' .' " rnn car thoif 3ia ' rr publication" should auit get honest with; ourselves. ; M Cln 'Establishment9 Fires Back By WILLIAM G. OTIS DTH Columnist Recently, hundreds of con cerned, students stornied onto the athletic field of a school in Washington and staged a sitdown, protesting infringe ments on their liberty. No doubt sensing their ardor and commitment, school officials promptly called an assem bly and promised negotiation of student demands. " Such incidents as the fore-; going occur with increasing frequency in, our current sea son of protest. and hardly con stitute a cause, for great con cern. What sets this one apart is the fact : that the protestors were , eighth grade pupils,' and that their commitment was to , end such oppressive measures as assigned seats in the cafe teria and fish sticks for lunch. Of itself, this event has more humor than significance; how ever, it reflects the funda mentally adolescent motiva tion of an ever greater num ber xi . protest movements. Fuzzy Thinking Settles Over Goodykoontz Issue By PETE WALES - DTH Columnist . A pre-summer swarm : of . rumors and fuzzy thinking has settled around the Goodykoontz-issue over the past four days, rendering it almost -impossible to understand. ' An open-air meeting is to be -held tomorrow-at noon in Polk Place. Students who are. in the least bit interested in the , quality of teaching here should try to attend. The issue - at hand is the failure of the Department of English to rehire a man known to students (graduate included) arid' faculty mem- bers as an unconventional, but highly stimulating teach er. A lot of garble has been thrown over the circumstan ces of his departure. Goodykoontz was hired two years ago to a one-year con tract and rehired for the same period last year. He . had no promises of being rehired again although he felt that his department chairman, Dr. George Harper, had implied that he wanted him to stay on a little longer. The question is: Why: did Harper not rehire him for another one-year contract or,: better yet, recommend;i him - for a three-year appointment. Harper has said that the reason was primarily failure to publish, although he has saidj different: things ce lizM:tudentopinionv hr the then to different -people.- ; v&:ttf !run4mlifVn -Wbile Student for Teaers beKeves that ' Duhlishme : is . very . important ? m .makmg UNC. a university; instead '.of. college,: it believes that classroom . teaching . is more basic, V more!; essential. ;If ; a . man publishes and has some- : thing .to say, he should be rewarded. Likewise, if a man teaches - especially well. and. has something to tell his stu-, dents, he too should be re warded. A - balance must be struck. " .- But Harper's assertion that publishing potential is more impoixam . in nirmg leacners - than: ability to- teach is pure important - in hiring teachers rubbisluiri v : -' - - - However, there may be oth - "Protest" and "commitment" and "civil disobedience" are now in vogue. " So those of us who are look ing to inter the medieval ways of the "consensus establish ment" need only the license of our dedication, and off we shall march to demonstrate be it against war, Baptists, imperialism, capitalism, uni versity regulations, Republi cans, the draft, vegetarians, prohibitionists, the General Assembly, police brutality, or whatever just so we dem onstrate.; Thus we shall spark a "cre ative dialogue" and hopefully implement some of our "radi cal social criticism," further deteriorating the puritanical provincialism ; of which . we have so long been the cap tives. : - . ' " The principle spokesmen at UNC for this type of men tality are James Gardner and Timothy Kay, who of late have presented the campus with a three - part Spring Epistle, apparently dealing with the er reasons for not rehiring Goodykoontz. He is a very controversial teacher, - one who uses gim micks to- excite and interest . his ' students . in : the subject matter. He relates - ideas - in -literature to present "events to make them more meaningful. He often exercises, the minds of his students with criticisms of the University itself, the . world directly, around them. Agree or disagree, he makes people think. And what could be more essential to the learn ing process? We are not here to copy down facts.. We are ' here to learn how to learn. Something , has to ' spark a student, some idea thrown out . in the classroom, some ana logy of something he is study-" ing with something going on -around him. Then he is able to peer into the vast store of knowledge available at the University and learn for him self. If Harper wants to get rid i Of Goodykoontz1 because h , has no room for controversy - or new. methods; the students want to know about it. Examples such as this show very graphically why it is de sirable to have some sort of mechanism -for, bringing stu dent opinion into decisions re garding faculty tenure and promotion. - - - This is not so terribly new! Harvard and Columbia, to name only a few, .have mobi- S cc,tm : ine classroom ; nrmpe an? 'c- be. "a part of policy ""decisioris affecting" this. - " -' v ' -.True, . the students rare. tran- sients; But . to ;say.they are r not interested; in the fate of ' tne Umversity now or in the iuiure, as one DTH writer said, is absurd. The writer in question has - not looked far among his colleagues. Students, wishing to indicate a little interest - in "this . vital topic and . who wish to find out what the issues are shnulrf make a definite -sTmninfT ' to attend ithTSS?-"" row Th 'JZa" T lasted, ' i . lescence - and "radical i social " "criticism." " status of liberalism at the University. "Apparently," I say, be cause the language of the arti cles was so marked by ver bosity, and the ideas so di luted by the language, that in reality it was most difficult to discern what the epistle real ly was about. Perhaps in their bid to form a "broadly based liberal research and action movement . . nationally af filiated, but free to address local university and communi ty problems," they are pre paring us for the establish ment of a campus chapter of - Students for a Democratic So ciety or Americans for Dem ocratic Action. : Whatever the; intent , of this ominous: proposal, their final objective is clear: to wrench . us from our present state of Neanderthal superstition and mold a new society which "would never tolerate -. . . a Raymond Mallard, or -- university-content to operate as a consensus establishment." - Here; here! The apostles of : tolerance openly anticipate the day when we shall display in tolerance: to ideas and persons - they opp)se. More astonishing : than this, though, is their de preciation of Judge Mallard, ' who chose to . administer jus tice according to the require- . ments of the law, rather than j the ' incantations of amateur . sociologists. : ' Equally notable is their dis dain of the University's hesi- tancy to axe the "consensus establishment," which has maintained, nourished and in- dulged it since' 1797 and has - presided over our emergence as one of the better universi ties of the South. . Gardner and Ray appear to represent a new breed of the old crowd which has al- - ways desired to surround ad olescent attitudes with intel lectual substance and ethical foundation. They are among those whose facility with poly syllabic words substantially ' exceeds the; merit of the ideas they seek to express. They number with the most recent of those "radical so cial critics," whose past so phistication has sown the seeds of progressive educa tion and reaped a harvest of ; high school graduates who ; move thier. lips as they read m m ana wno cannot compose a coherent - paragraph; who have sown the -seeds-of bound less indulgence and reaped a harvest of juvenile hoods, switchblades, and bicycle chains; who have sown the seeds of. tasteless euphemism and reaped a harvest of cur rent, "art" which can be hung on the wall in any of four or five different ways and be .Just as meaningful, and of "sculpture" consisting of pa per mache, metal scraps, and garbage, ,-. . . - r Thus have Ihe bppbnents' of the consensus establisb'meht'.' " ficwn. and thus have they . reaped. ''ssriieone--will, take pen in hand to .decry , the "re- actionary'.' . thinking ..found in some DTK columns. So be it. Indeed, all is not right with the ' "consensus establish- ment"; that is true. We have yet to deal success fully with racial injustice, an exploding population, : and world communism. . But let there be at least one voice in- defense of the ideas and institutions from which we have inherited all that we are,r sna whicn have thi bvely withstood the are snd which have thus far on- skRlehtsr of over - crown ado-
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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May 9, 1965, edition 1
4
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